Pro Artibus, Ekenäs, Finland

The socially engaged video, both in video art and documentary, is the theme of the exhibit, curated by Lorella Scacco.

A focus on social concerns often coincides with the use of documentaries, a visual tradition that is very widespread in the Nordic countries and has been adopted and developed not only in video art but also in cinema. Starting from the notion of the video art used in the Nordic countries as a medium of real documentation and social commentary, the show presents five different points of views by Nordic artists: From the ruined societies of Chernobyl and Detroit shot by Siri Hermansen to the living portrait of Eva Koch; the search for balance in the Maria Friberg’s video to the visual poetry of Rúrí and even to the “reductionist” video piece of Mika Taanila. Five different ways to perceive a “social landscape”.